The Requirements Traceability Matrix is used to track the project requirements through the Project Life-Cycle. It documents each requirement, the source of the requirement and traces how the requirement will be addressed through the project deliverables. stakeholdermap.comRequirements Traceability Matrices are particularly important because they provide the ability to draw a direct line between the project business objectives, and the requirements that will deliver the objectives.
Use this FREE template to capture all of the key information you need to document and track project requirements.
See what is in the Template! Check out the Contents complete with Hints and Tips on how to use.
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The contents of the Requirements Traceability Matrix
Project details
Document:
- Project ID
- Project title
- Project manager
- Project sponsor
Requirement ID
Give each requirement a unique identifier or reference so that it can be easily traced throughout the project life-cycle. If you have separate requirements gathering document the ID should come from there. Get a requirements gathering template.
Category
Provide a category for the requirement typical categories are: functional, non-functional, usability, security, performance, maintainability etc.
Requirement
Describe the requirement that needs to be met by the project. The requirement might be a product, some product functionality, a service, or a result.
Priority
Provide a priority for the requirement. For example, mandatory, should have, nice to have or high, medium, low.
Source
Enter the name of the stakeholder that identified the requirement.
Business Objective
Document the business objective that this requirement will meet or help to meet. The business objective will come from the project charter or the Project business Case.
Deliverable(s)
List the deliverable or deliverables that will make up this requirement.
Verification
Explain how you will test that the requirement is completed satisfactorily. For example 99.9% uptime for user acceptance of software.
Validation
Explain how the requirement will be validated or tested. This will often be via user acceptance testing, but it might also be by the achievement of a milestone or perhaps by the completion of a key performance indicator.
Requirements Traceability Matrix Download
Excel download - Requirements Traceability Matrix (Excel .xls)
Excel download - Requirements Traceability Matrix (Excel .xlsx)
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Customising this template
These templates are made in Excel, so they provide a great and very flexible way of capturing your project requirements. However, for large or complex projects you may choose to use some specialist requirements management software.If your project has several suppliers you might want to add a column indicating which supplier is accountable for meeting that particular requirement.
To make sure each requirement can be linked to the project schedule and the WBS, we suggest adding the unique reference number from the WBS for each requirement. Later in the project you may also want to add to the relevant test cases that will be used to test that the requirement meets the business objective.
In the spreadsheet itself you might also decide that you want to organise or use an outline format in which the business requirements is it parent level and the technical requirements are at subordinate levels. The great thing about Excel is that this can easily be done by using filtering or group by functionality.
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